


Five Seconds Out of Time

by Rocky_Oberlin



Series: Guardian Ianto series [11]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode: s01e12 Captain Jack Harkness, Episode: s01e13 End of Days, Gen, Ianto's Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 20:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7947505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rocky_Oberlin/pseuds/Rocky_Oberlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While investigating some small shop, Ianto is pulled five seconds out of time so the Servant of Abbadon can take his place. Ianto can only witness the bringing of the Beast and the changes to the team by not being there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Seconds Out of Time

**Author's Note:**

> I'm shocked; I didn't think I was going to get this one out so fast. I hope everyone enjoys this one.

Ianto felt disorientated and stumbled into the table next to him. The memories of the last half hour seemed fuzzy and everything was blurry. He couldn’t see anybody, but he did hear them. It was like an echo in a large room.

There! Someone was standing on the street corner, talking on their cell. Ianto tried to get his attention while he staggered from the shop, but the man kept talking before disappearing in the next moment. Ianto looked around. It was like that all over; people were standing still for one moment and then disappearing. And the voices were still sounding like an echo chamber.

“Enjoying yourself, Guardian?” Ianto watched as the strange man stepped into his view. His voice wasn’t echoing and Ianto tried to grab him. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” he cautioned. “You might be stuck like this for the rest of your existence.”

“What do you mean?” Ianto growled.

The man smirked. “I mean that you have been pulled five seconds out of sync with the rest of the world. You hear the echoes and see when someone stands still long enough, but you can’t interact with them. You are out of time.”

Ianto clenched his fists so hard his nails bit into the palms of his hands. “I thought there were only two Time Lords left. I can recognize the Doctor and you don’t give off the feelings of the Master, so who are you?”

“A servant of my Master Abaddon.” The old man bowed with a smirk. “The Time Lords can’t help you and you can’t stop what will happen.”

“And what is that?” bit out Ianto.

“The Deathless Man will go back in time to meet his namesake and I will trick your people into opening the Rift. Once that is done, my Master will come out and devour the souls of everyone in his shadow.”  
“Not if my family has anything to say about it,” growled Ianto.

“But they don’t know about your predicament, now do they?” asked the old man as he took a step forward. The next line echoed. “They still think that you are safe in Cardiff, Wales.”

Ianto growled, and then smirked. He may be in Cardiff, Wales, but he was not alone because he WAS in Cardiff, Wales. That meant two things: One, his family will be scrambling soon because Wales knows there is a problem and, two, there is another place that is out of Time. That place may have a door that he could use to go back to the proper time. “If that idiot wizard doesn’t screw up the spell,” Ianto muttered.

He heaved a sigh and rolled his shoulders. First things first, he needed to see how the rest of Torchwood was doing and to hope that they didn’t make the same mistakes that others have. Like opening the Rift and bringing things that should have been left in their cages. The last time that happened… Well, Ianto really didn’t want to think about that one and still didn’t want to think about the beings that helped create the music that came out of the late Seventies. (He told the Director at Torchwood One that letting those beings go into the music business was a bad idea. BOY was he right.) But those were two different events and had nothing to do with the now. He needed to concentrate on getting to the Hub.

Ianto felt like those old Sci-Fi movies that had a post-Apocalyptic theme to them with one person or a few people surviving. Ianto wondered if Helena had a bout with this time warp experience since she wrote that book “The Time Machine” or may be Richard Matheson did before writing “I Am Legend”. Those were too real to not be a possibility; or Helena really did find a time machine at the Warehouse and took it out for a spin.

Ianto sighed. “Too late to ask now,” he muttered. “She’s Bronzed by those idiots in charge of the Warehouse.”

When Ianto was finally able to get to the front door, he had a problem. How was he to get in? He couldn’t open the door because in the five seconds before it was still closed. Unless someone opened the door and he could slip in, he was stuck. Then a miracle happened; the rookie was actually on time for once. Ianto slipped in after her and dogged her steps to get into Torchwood proper. Just in time to hear Owen arguing with- Himself?  
Ianto stopped just inside of the doorway to listen to Owen argue with an Ianto about what they should be doing about their missing comrades. There was an echo to Owen’s words, but fake-Ianto’s words sounded like they were being spoken in real time. Ianto’s heart started to pound. The old man was taking his place to make sure that they would do as he wanted them to.

This was not good; especially when the damn rookie decided to go back to where Jack and Tosh went missing. And the hint that the old man gave him was bugging him. What did he mean by Jack meeting his namesake? Unless…

Ianto stumbled back to lean against a wall, a desk, something, because he realized where and when Jack and Tosh were tossed. It was the night before the loss of a plane from a convoy of American Fighter pilots. One was lost due to “being shot down”. Instead he slipped between one second and the next and ended up on the Lost Island of Avalon. To the rest of the world, he was dead; to Ianto and the residents of Avalon, he was a returned knight. Merlin was still complaining about the accent.

“No, no, no,” groaned Ianto. “Deathless Jack Harkness meeting with the original Jack Harkness? That is not going to go over well. Jack will have to change his name and I have to pray that none of my family was around to hang this up in some way in 1940.” Another thought hit him in the solar plexus. “I can’t call to check if they did see Jack back then either.”

Sometimes they could tell when a time traveler was around; they gave off the feeling of not being in sync with the rest of the time. His Jack had adjusted after getting dumped here, but having both Jack and Tosh forcefully sent back by that little old man was not going to go over well.

“Here is where I ask for the Mercy of God to abound for all of us,” Ianto prayed quietly. “And may it continue through the coming time.” Ianto had to smile bitterly at the next moment after the prayer though; Jack still didn’t understand why Ianto still had faith in a deity that Jack found no evidence of in all his time traveling. Oh, sweet irony that Ianto still prayed for him once in a while.

“We should open the Rift,” argued Owen. “It’s the only way to get them back.”

“There has to be another way,” argued not-Ianto. “I know that Tosh was working on something that could help us get them back. All we need is information from that time.”

“And I could get it too if you hadn’t trapped me five seconds behind,” muttered Ianto.

“But that was the reason why I trapped you five seconds behind,” whispered the old man. “So I could get your co-workers to open the Rift.”

Ianto narrowed his eyes. The old man was good; how best to get Owen to do something he wasn’t supposed to was to forbid him to do it. He was still healing from the loss of Diane and Jack’s anger of his trying to kill himself by Weevil, thus he was unbalanced enough to want to help a friend and claim a bit of glory for saving the day for once. All Gwen needed was to be told she was saving Jack and she had the starry-eyed dreams of him accepting her as the second-in-command that she thought she was. It was almost like this not-Ianto was changing them back to a time before Ianto revealed himself as a Guardian.

“Did you say something?” asked Owen as he looked up from the plans of the Rift manipulator.

“Only that you should reconsider,” said not-Ianto.

“Yeah, well, that’s not happening mate,” argued Owen. Ianto heard paper rattling and the shift of a lock box. “I want Jack and Tosh back, so we need to find the pieces to get them. The plans say that we need a key and it’s missing from the box.”

“What!” seethed Ianto. “I had that thing locked up good and tight. Who was able to get it?”

“May be it’s at the dance hall,” suggested not-Ianto. “If it is supposed to look like the one this Bilis Manger was holding in the picture.”

“Let me see,” ordered Owen. Ianto could imagine the smile on Owen’s face as he discovered the missing piece that was needed for a machine that should have been left well enough alone. “And that would be it, mate.”

“Where are you going?” called not-Ianto.

“To get a missing piece,” Owen yelled back as the door siren sounded.

“Good,” whispered not-Ianto. “I’ll see you there after I get Miss Cooper pointed in the right direction.”

Ianto wasn’t sure how long he had been alone in the Hub when not-Ianto came back. And he was gloating as he appeared in the five seconds Ianto had been stranded in. “Bilis Manger, I presume,” Ianto said dryly.

“You would presume correct,” the newly named not-Ianto smiled. “You were industrious in your time alone.”

“I’m still having trouble figuring out why you want to open the Rift through. Why bring Abbadon through?”

“To free my Master has always been my goal.” The smile on the mirror-Ianto’s face was haunting and false. Ianto hoped to never have that smile ever cross his face. “You see, He was captured so long ago and chained to a rock in the deep of space. Some fools in the future allow him the space to free Himself, but He needs the key to unlock the door. I am providing that key.”

“And in return you get to what exactly?” Ianto bit out.

“To serve him; much like how you serve the Universe and its Creator.”

“Ah, but we don’t go around manipulating people and time.”

“Don’t you? I would say that you manipulate people all the time by setting up one person to be in the right place to so some odd job or be with the right spouse.”

“What my future seeing brothers do in their spare time is not something the whole family does,” snarled Ianto. “And even if we do manipulate circumstances, we do it with the blessing of the Universe for the sake of what is to come.”

“And I am manipulating circumstances for my own benefit as well,” said Bilis in triumph. “There is little difference between what you are doing and what I am.”

“Actually there is a lot,” muttered Ianto as he watched the false figure of himself fade into the normal time. “We aren’t self-serving.”

Ianto listened as false Ianto-Bilis discovered the calculations Tosh had left behind had been incomplete and gave a false sense of despair. Ianto was sure that Tosh had the full set of calculations, but they had been manipulated somehow- Bilis, of course. Ianto’s despair compounded for the fact that his brilliant friend was stuck in a time that would not let her be her brilliant self because of her race and gender. More despair was added as Owen found the key and was ready to place it.

“I won’t let you do it,” said false Ianto-Bilis.

“How are you going to stop me?” asked Owen. “Are you going to shoot me?”

“If I have to; Jack needs me.”

“Only in your dreams, Teaboy. Only in your sad, pathetic, wet dreams,” Owen snarled out.

There was a shot and a cry that turned into triumph as the Hub shook and rumbled. Even in the five second prison, Ianto felt the Rift Manipulator come on-line after so long. This was not good. The hurt that Ianto felt at Owen’s words were pushed back by the fear of what was to come.

“Owen, Ianto, I have Jack and Tosh,” announced Gwen over the comms. “I’m bringing them back.”

It was a tense while as Ianto listened to Owen crash through his surgery pit to fix himself up and false Ianto-Bilis stood in front of the Rift Manipulator with a triumphant smile on his face.

“You lose,” he whispered.

“Not yet,” growled Ianto. Wales had changed once again. His family was arriving.

“Jack, Tosh, you’re back!” came the false gladness of the false Ianto at their arrival. “What happened?”

“Angels danced at the Midway,” Jack said quietly. It was quiet after that; Ianto could only imagine that everyone left to give him some time to grieve that loss of a good man. At least that was what Ianto hoped anyway.

The next morning all Hell broke loose.

“Thanks to you lot, the Rift has splintered open,” announced Jack.

“Your welcome,” snarled Owen. “We just wanted to get you and Tosh back.”

“You should have left us there,” snarled Jack.

“Yeah, well, I doubt that either of you would have weathered the return,” Owen shot back. Ianto wondered if Owen forgot that Jack was unable to die.

Ianto listened to the tense exchange and prayed that at least Tosh was noticing something about his doppelganger. He guessed not as she just reported how there were many strange things happening in the world that was centering on Cardiff.

“And there is an outbreak of the Black Plague in the hospital,” she concluded.

“Owen, you and Tosh go take care of the hospital. Make sure it doesn’t spread. Gwen, you and I are going to get that Roman centurion the police are holding.”

Ianto hoped that someone would have asked about him, but they all seemed too focused, or something else Ianto was sure, to realize that Gwen was once again elevated over himself. He wondered if Bilis was also changing memories as well, since everyone had been treating Gwen like the rookie she was and not the field agent she was thinking herself to be. Now she was relegated back to the field agent status that he had taken her of off and not-Ianto was now the butler again. That situation will have to be hashed out later on why they started to give her those centimeters again.

“And once again I’m alone,” griped Ianto. He shook his head. “Things are progressing too fast for this to be just the Rift being opened. Bilis is goading them to go faster.” The thought made Ianto shiver; if he could mess with their perceptions of him, what else could he do?

It took them a bit, but they did get back; Gwen and Jack put the Roman in a cell. Out of curiosity, Ianto joined them in the cell block to hear what might happen. While he was on his way down, he heard Bilis put on a show for the CCTV about seeing someone. When Lisa’s name crossed his lips, Ianto grew cold. What was he thinking using her as his pressure point? The rest of Torchwood 3 never even heard of her.

Then Gwen had her vision. Ianto wasn’t sure what she did, but when he returned from the cells to the main Hub, Tosh and Owen were talking about how she left in a big hurry.

“Ianto!” yelled Jack. “I need you to secure something for me.”

Ianto was going to reply, but then he heard Bilis as Ianto reply. Ianto followed the man down to the Archives to see just what Jack wanted taken care of.

“See how easily he forgets you?” asked Bilis as he roamed the Archives. His voice didn’t echo. “He doesn’t even see you as the Guardian you are; right now you are just another employee for him to order around.”

“I’m sure that you are helping him along with that thinking,” said Ianto. “After all, I’ve noticed that the others are not acting as they should be either.”

“May be they are reacting to a suggestion or maybe they are reverting back to the way they should be if they never knew about you being a Guardian in the first place.”

“Or maybe you have the wrong group,” said Ianto idly. “After all, I caught your performance in the hallway speaking with Lisa. Too bad they don’t know who she is and from the anticipation you are giving off, I don’t think you could change that little performance. It’s too close to when you need to release your Master.” Ianto smiled grimly. “I have a feeling that my family is getting ready for him.”

“Even if they get here in time, they won’t be able to stop Him,” said Bilis with a bit of triumph in his voice. “They will be powerless to stop Him.”

“Where there is a will, there is a way.”

Bilis smiled like he was smiling at a particularly dim child. “Keep telling yourself that. Now, dear Gwen has brought her darling Rhys here to protect him. I should make sure that she fails.” Bilis disappeared through a doorway, his back showing him to be the little old man that he was instead of the doppelganger of Ianto he was portraying himself as.

Ianto ran for the cell block to see if he could stop the old man.

He was too late.

Gwen charged by him, leaving the breeze of her passage to be felt by Ianto. As he reached the main floor behind here, he could hear her demanding that the Rift be opened again so everything could be reset.

“I want Rhys back!” she screamed. “If the only way to get him back is to open the Rift, then I’ll do it!”

“Jack, maybe we should try,” offered Tosh.

“No! No good will come of it,” Jack said firmly. “Gwen, stop!”

“No!” yelled Gwen. Ianto heard the clacking of keys on the keyboard, then a cry of frustration. “We need retinal scans!”

Ianto wondered if Bilis was able to copy his eyes in order to get past the system.

“Ianto, the computer isn’t accepting your scan,” said Tosh, quietly.

“May be Jack did something to it,” offered Bilis/not-Ianto. “Maybe we should try to use his. It might override everything else.”

“And if I refuse?” asked Jack.

BANG! There was a gunshot from someone.

“Now you can’t,” said Owen.

“What have you done?” Bilis said as Ianto. Ianto thought he was hamming it up a bit much, but the others were falling for it.

“He’ll come back,” said Gwen dispassionately. “Are we in?”

“Yes,” said Tosh. “The Rift Manipulator is opening the Rift all the way.”

Ianto didn’t know if the Hub started to shake first or if Jack was coming back with a groan first, but it seemed like they happened at the same time.

“Are you happy?” asked Jack. “Now the whole world is in danger. Ianto, is your family aware of the trouble about to happen?”

“It won’t matter,” said Bilis as he changed back to his original form. “They won’t be able to stop my Master.”

“Ianto?” asked Tosh.

“No, silly girl,” said Bilis. “Although he is here, he just can’t interact with you. Although, I think that I will let him watch the end of his world with you.”

Ianto felt a jerk around his left arm as he was pulled forward five seconds and into the same time frame as the rest of the world- just in time to leap to the side to avoid falling debris from impacting on his head. “We need to get out of here,” he said calmly.

The rest of his co-workers fled the Hub with Jack at the back. Ianto looked over his shoulder to see if the old man was still there, but the Hub was empty. Even Myfanwy managed to get out before things go too bad. They ran through the streets and alleys to the City Center to see a great Beast lumbering over Cardiff.

Ianto studied the clouds and looked for his brother and sister. They were far away from Abbadon, but were trying to keep the cloud cover up as much as possible to prevent the shadow of Abbadon from touching as many people as possible. “They won’t be able to do that forever,” said Ianto.

“What? asked Owen.

“Harm and Marie are trying to keep the clouds over as much of the city as possible. Once a bit of light breaks through to give him a shadow, people will start to die.”

“How do you know this?” asked Tosh as Jack studied the creature tower over the city.

“It’s one of those things that we instinctively know,” shrugged Ianto as he glanced at Tosh, then Jack, then back to watching the cloud cover.

“Do you need to help them?” asked Owen.

Ianto looked at Jack for the first time.

“Go. I have an idea,” ordered Jack.

Ianto nodded and grabbed a breeze to join his siblings on the rooftops. He heard Jack order Gwen to come with him and he wondered what Jack was going to do while they tried to protect as much of the city as possible. Once he was in place, Ianto studied what his older siblings were doing and joined in. He could see some of the bodies of people that they couldn’t save and heard the screams of the souls being pulled to Abbadon.

Ianto was sweating when he noticed Abbadon moving away from the city. “Where is he going?” Ianto asked out loud.

“I think something has caught his eye,” replied Harm.

“Ianto, why is your Partner in an empty field, goading Abbadon to come to him?” asked his sister.

“What?” choked Ianto. He looked through the breeze to see that his sister was right. Jack was taunting Abbadon to himself in the empty field and was slowly dying in the process. “I think he’s trying to overload Abbadon on life,” he said shakily.

Ianto heard the curses of his siblings, even the ones who were not holding the clouds over the city. “We’ll meet you at your Hub when this is over,” said Harm as they watched in morbid fascination the give and take of Jack and Abbadon.

It was forever and an instant for the Beast to finally die. Ianto had fallen to his knees as he slowly released the cloud cover in the hopes of not violently affecting other weather systems too badly. When he was done, he slowly left the rooftop through the stairwell door feeling his exhaustion and age. At the street level, he almost stumbled out and summoned at cab to take him to the Mermaid Quay. His family crowded around the door to the Visitor’s Center, waiting for him to lead them in.

The Hub was a complete mess. Owen and Tosh were trying to clean it up, but some things were just too much for one person to handle. Silently and quickly, his siblings split up to help right what they could and take care of what needed to be fixed.

“Where is Gwen?” asked Ianto tiredly as he looked at the smashed coffee maker.

“Down in the cold storage,” said Owen. “She’s holding vigil over Jack.”

“Jack will return when he is good and ready,” snarled Ianto. “And why did he get put down there anyway?”

“Because he’s dead,” said Owen. “There was no heartbeat when she brought him in.”

“Just because he came in without a heartbeat doesn’t mean that he will stay that way,” said Timothy, Ianto’s oldest Earth brother, as he helped Tony, Ianto’s oldest Fire brother, set a table back up.

“How do you know?” asked Tosh from her station as she tried to reboot her computer.

“We’ve been watching him for a long time,” said Nick, Ianto’s middle Earth brother. “He sort of makes a lot of noise in the world without knowing it.”

“And he is still making noise,” said Steve, Ianto’s youngest Earth brother. “Right now it’s faint, but it’s there.”

“May be Ianto should go down and have a look at Jack to make sure that his soul is still there,” said Marie. “He could give you some idea of when Jack might decide to return to the land of the living.”

“But Gwen is down there,” Owen started to say and then stopped. He and Marie smiled evilly before Marie started for the Torchwood morgue.

“Ianto, I would follow just to make sure that you won’t need another drawer,” said Harm tiredly.

Ianto was almost willing to see what his sister would do to Gwen when she refused to leave Jack’s side. He did note that several of his brothers were crowding around Tosh and that the CCTV to the morgue was open. When Owen sidled up to Tosh’s station, he was given a clear view. Ianto hurried faster.

“You do know that there is clean up than needs to be done upstairs, right?” Ianto heard his sister ask so politely, but scarily.

“Jack needs someone to be with him,” Gwen said.

“No,” Marie drew out. “He needs to be put someplace that he can be monitored and you need to go upstairs to help with the mess you helped create.”

“The others have it well in hand, I’m sure,” said Gwen absently. Ianto could see her brushing Jack’s hair from his face.

“Yes, but you need to learn a lesson and the clean-up will help enforce that lesson,” said Marie. It was still polite, but it was getting biting.

Gwen looked up at Ianto’s sister. “Who are you to tell me what to do?” she asked. “You are not a part of Torchwood and I’m not leaving Jack. If you want the Hub cleaned up, then you should get back upstairs and get to work.”

Ianto winced. Gwen shrieked as she was grabbed by her arm and dragged from Jack’s body. Marie just smiled at her brother as they passed by him, but Gwen was demanding that he do something to help her.

“I am helping you, Gwen,” Ianto said quietly. “I’m helping you grow as a human to realize that your mistakes have consequences and that you must be held accountable for them.” He continued on to where Jack was laying while Gwen was lead back up to the main Hub, cursing the whole way. “Besides, you did all of this for Rhys and now you’re sitting vigil for Jack? Weren’t you even going to check on your boyfriend?”

Ianto knew that she couldn’t hear him, but he felt better saying it. He sighed and rubbed his face with both hands before going to Jack’s side. Ianto looked down at the body to see what state the soul might be in, if it was even there.

“Huh, you’re barely there, but you are there,” he said to Jack. “I guess we should put you someplace where we can watch you.” Ianto activated his comm unit. “Owen.”

“What?”

“I need help moving Jack to an observation room,” said Ianto. “He’s working his way back, but it might be a bit before he will awake.”

“I’ll be right there,” Owen said quickly.

Owen was good to his word and arrived with a gurney to help him move Jack to a better place than the morgue. “You’re sure about this?” Owen asked quietly as they wheeled Jack up the hall.

“Yes,” Ianto nodded. “Marie can double check me if you want.”

“No, no, I’ll take your word for it,” Owen said.

Spencer and Ryan had a bed ready for Jack as Owen and Ianto got him to a subfloor observation room. All four of them moved Jack onto the bed and the Water twins left with their older brother as Owen set up his monitors to keep track of Jack’s progress. Ianto thought the sound of an alarm over a low heartbeat sounded wonderful for once.

It was three days before Jack woke up. Every eight hours Ianto, Harm, or Marie would check to see how his soul was doing and give him a bit of direction. Gwen tried to plant herself in the room with Jack again, but Harry was quick to chivvy her out to help with the clean-up in the lower floors. Ianto was pleased that the Archives were in fairly good order and their guests were safe.

When Jack woke up, Owen was the only one in the room with him. Owen didn’t even know Jack had even awakened until the Captain sat up. Owen’s yell brought everyone running to see what had startled the grouchy doctor into such a loud exclamation.

“Jack!” cried Tosh as she dived in for a hug. Gwen went for the other side and Ianto stood next to Owen. Ianto’s family smiled and quietly went back to work.

“Are you okay?” Ianto asked Owen quietly as they watched Jack hug the girls.

“Yeah,” Owen said. To Ianto, he sounded like he was going to cry, but both ignored it.

Jack struggled off the bed and stood before Owen and Ianto. Owen tried to shake Jack’s hand, but Jack had nothing to do with that. He grabbed Owen’s hand and pulled him into a hug. The tears Owen tried to ignore started to slide down his face and Jack held him close and said, “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

Jack let Owen go after a minute and turned to Ianto, who had been standing next to the shut off monitors. “Ianto,” Jack breathed.

Ianto ducked his head. “Good to have you back, sir,” he said quietly.

“I felt you,” Jack said. “When I was coming back, I felt you and your brother and sister showing me how to get back. Thank you.”

Ianto looked up and smiled. “You’re welcome, Jack.”

Jack smiled back, and then swooped into grab Ianto’s face between his hands. Before Ianto could say anything, Jack kissed him. This was not a quick peck on the lips; this was passionate. Jack’s hands moved from Ianto’s face to around his waist. Owen and Tosh gave each other wide eyed looks and big grins as they watched the pair kiss. Gwen just stared with her mouth open.

“Ahem.” Someone cleared their throat, which caused Jack to break the kiss and Ianto to flush red with embarrassment. It was his baby brother in the doorway. “Thank you. Now that Jack is undeniably awake, we are going to leave now, Ianto. Owen, Tosh, it was a pleasure to meet you; Jack, we, Ianto’s family, need to have a nice long talk with you. Soon. Gwen… Good bye.” He turned to walk away before stopping and looking back. “Be careful,” Harry cautioned. “What’s coming is going to test everyone.”

Jack, Tosh, Owen, and Gwen looked at each other with a puzzled look, but Ianto nodded to his baby brother. It was getting closer, whatever it was that was spooking his Fire brothers.

When the Torchwood team reached the main floor, Ianto’s family was gone and most of the repairs were finished.

“I could use a coffee,” announced Jack. “Ianto, could you make me one?”

“Sorry, it will have to be from a shop,” Ianto apologized. “The coffee maker took a hit and we haven’t replaced it yet.”

“Ah, well, I’ll have to wait for the nectar of the gods, but could you get me a coffee?”

Ianto shook his head in amusement. “Sure. Would you like anything else?”

“Something to eat?” Jack looked hopeful.

“I’ll come with you,” offered Tosh. “You could probably use the help.”

“I’ll get the sandwiches if you two get the coffee,” bargained Owen.

Tosh and Ianto looked at each other. “Deal,” said Ianto as the three left.

It took them a half an hour to get the coffee and the sandwiches and return to the Hub, but when they arrived, all they found were scattered papers and a bewildered Gwen.

“I went to get something and when I got back, Jack was gone,” she said. “Was he taken?”

Tosh went to her computer to see what happened to their Captain as Ianto put the coffees down. Next to him Owen set down the sandwiches and they looked at each other. Owen looked a bit fearful, but Ianto had a hunch.

He was right.

“Jack left,” Tosh announced.

They grouped around her computer and watched the recording of Jack looking up, smiling, and leaving the Hub. Ianto noticed the hand in the jar was picked up as Jack went by it.

“He found his Doctor,” he said quietly.

“What did you say, Ianto?” asked Gwen.

Ianto shook his head. “Nothing, Gwen. Nothing.”

Tosh, Owen, and Ianto traded looks as Gwen harped on how Jack left. Tosh and Owen may not know much about what Jack was waiting for, but they trusted Ianto. And Ianto knew something about Jack leaving. “Come by an hour after we leave,” said Ianto. “I’ll explain then.” 

“I have to see how Rhys is,” announced Gwen. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Ianto you have Call tonight.”

Ianto didn’t say anything and all three watched Gwen leave. “This is going to be hell,” said Owen.

“You have no idea,” said Ianto. “In fact, I don’t think any of us know.”

“What do you mean?” asked Tosh. She and Owen looked at Ianto questioningly.

Ianto took a deep breath. “I think that something is coming that we as Torchwood can’t fight.” He looked down. “I don’t even think that we as Guardians will be able to stop it either. It has been starting for a while now, but I think that it will be coming to a head soon.”

“How do you know?” asked Owen.

Ianto looked down at Owen’s and Tosh’s left hands. “Because you both have been tapping the same rhythm at the same time for a week now; Gwen started earlier. Something is coming and I think that Jack and his Doctor will be in the middle of it.”

Ianto really wished he was wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> I must give kudos to MiladyDragon for the idea of having Bilis Manger take on someone else's form. I think I have been trying to plan for this part of the story for a while. That may have been the reason I had a problem writing the last few chapters.
> 
> See MiladyDragon's Dragon-Verse work. She write an excellent story and doesn't pull punches with Gwen.


End file.
